Self-conscious...

I'm trying to break out of it, be a bit more flirtatious with girls (really must start calling them women soon...) that I like. For a while I was in the weird situation that I could flirt happily with girls that I *wasn't attracted to* - I guess because if it got too serious I could say honestly that I was just kidding around.

Intentionless flirting is really a lot like what I would call banter - those straight-faced conversations where you try to out-funny the other guy without admitting that you're both talking balls, like discussing the best way to raptor-proof your house. By that analogy I suppose "proper" flirting would be banter with a mental patient: discussing the best way to raptor-roof your house without being entirely convinced that the other guy isn't honestly scared of a dinosaur attack.

Slightly scared that I just compared women to mental patients and sex to being mauled to death by a velociraptor. This explains a lot about me. It is also a fantastic cautionary example against stream-of-consciousness typing whilst high on coffee.

With an open mind like yours, capable of making the dissonant associations between velociraptors with having sex, or women with mental patients, it's interesting to hear that you think you aren't good at flirting. Perhaps women have been tinkering with your mind and you couldn't absorb it on a conscious level? As Shakespeare wrote "The play is the thing." (At least, I'm pretty sure he wrote that.)